Obesity as a Sin of Gluttony - Essay Example

 Obesity as a Sin of Gluttony Introduction Despite the countless debates and orchestrated awareness campaigns against the health challenges of obesity, the urban populations across the world are walking on a risky, fatty path of life. From among the various challenges of beefiness, the most panicking one is the fatal effect of cardiovascular disorders that it brings to the individuals’ vulnerability. The curse of obesity spells a comprehensive check on the routines and choices of the victims and confines them to the psychological cubicle by restricting their feasibility to socializing, travelling, playing or participating in any physically demanding activities. The medical sciences have their own definitions and causes for identifying a person with the unhealthy fat; however the cultural and psychological reasons are the leading contributors to this problem. Logically speaking, the more one eats, the fatter one gets; therefore, the proportionate chances of obesity is more among the individuals with lust for new tastes and sumptuousness with every meal than those follow a normal diet for meeting the everyday requirement of nutrients. The greed for food and uncontrolled appetite of some individuals lands them in this biggest trouble, just to emphasize the truth that obesity is a sin of gluttony. This paper will critically examine the relationship between gluttony and obesity from the psychological, physical, medical and cultural perspectives in order to establish that obesity is the sin of gluttony. In order to make a study of the complex tie between obesity and gluttony, it is essential to identify the scientific features of both of these excess components of human anatomy. Firstly, obesity can be simply referred to a health condition caused by excess accumulation of body fat and it eventually leads to a significant impairment of health. The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that “a BMI greater than or equal to 30 is obesity” (WHO, 2015). BMI or Body Mass Index is a measure used to recognize whether a person’s body fat is excess. According to BMI standards, a person’s health status is recognized to be overweight if his BMI ranges between 25 and 29.9; the individual becomes obese once his BMI crosses 30. Researchers have clinically proven that the relationship between energy consumption and expenditure in the human body is one of the major determinants of body fat mass. To explain, researchers indicate that an individual can fall victim to obesity when he consumes more calories of food than he actually needed. It is important to note that humans need calories not only to supply energy for metabolic activities but also to maintain a healthy body mass. As studies point out, energy expenditure in people aged between 50 and 65 diminishes notably and therefore people of this age group are really vulnerable to developing obesity. Considering the influence of energy consumption-expenditure relationship on body fat mass, the issue of gluttony or excessive eating can be a major cause leading to obesity. The growing ‘eating out’ food trends in Europe and America directly leads to excess consumption of fat content foods and subsequently to obesity. Perceptions and Trends of Gluttony For the common public, the terms ‘obesity’ and ‘gluttony’ look symmetrical and corresponding to each other in the sense of literature. In other words, the habit of overeating and its subsequent impact of weight gaining are concurrent developments in the context of human health. All the critical literature on the integral bond between obesity and gluttony gets the quickest attention of the interpreters. The critical observation of the world population of the relative bond between excessive consumption and obesity has made a stigmatizing publicity of the health concerns due to the extra weight gaining of the victims. Puhl and Heuer (2010) indicate that stigmatization among the obese people in North America is an increasing social concern as the societies make a stereotypical identity for them as lazy, unproductive, weak-minded etc. The other side of this assessment makes an abstract conclusion that obese people are overeaters and are therefore lackadaisical. However, the relevance of an argument for the standardization of advisable weight proportion according to the body mass index (BMI) appears variably influential to the apparently fat persons. This mean deviation between the self-perceptions and BMI estimates about overweight makes the awareness attempts a difficult task for the experts. According to a finding, the self-perceptions about obesity is more influential to women than men among those who consider the relationship between the BMI and their actual body weight and judge themselves as overweight (Ruhm, 2010, p.18). There is indisputable relationship between fattiness and overeating, because the accumulation of fat occurs due to the metabolism of the excess calories in the human body. The calorific consumption and eating habits of people have a proportionate relationship with the factors like taste, appetite etc. The reasons for overeating may be more than the physical urges of an individual in many cases. The outcome of various psychological and emotional factors working with the personality of an individual can also result in developing the tendency of frequent consumption. The changing trend of lifestyles and busy life patterns coming as a part of the globalization contribute largely to the problem of irregular dietary habits of individuals particularly in urban areas. In the urge for pacing up with the requirements of each busy day, people run out of their focus on personal healthcare and may resort to eat anything to fill their stomach for the extra energy requirement. The trend of unhealthy dietary habits among the urban population has become popular with the income feasibility expansion guaranteed by globalization. Some studies reveal the fact that the urban consumption has increased since the average revenue of individuals and their families through new employment opportunities as part of the globalised urbanization of most countries (Vepa, n.d. pp.216-218). The habit of consuming the extra calorie is a habit among the urban employees as they are exposed to parties and the usual treats given by the colleagues and peers on various occasions. In many cases, they cannot shy away from the instant forces inviting them to the unwarranted consumptions. This condition is extended to the households where women take the share in such feasts and other ceremonial community functions. Sometimes even the pregnant women may fail to recognize the impacts of such food fests which result in the over nutrition issue. According to a report by Rajeev (2008) in The Hindu, the overeating tendencies and changes in the eating habits affects the pregnant women badly during the gestation and lactation period due to the excess of nutrition they receive from the food. Hence the imposing influence of urbanization affects not only the working class, but also other individuals in the community. Children at Risk The alarming concern of fattening is rapidly increasing among the children of upper class and high middle class families in many urban societies due to excessive eating. Parents usually negotiate a number of ways to feed their children with the best combinations and try to avoid their access to junk food and other extra calorific intakes. However, some studies suggest that restriction and intensity of child gluttony goes inversely proportionate as the more they are constrained, the more they eat such food on given occasions (Birch, Fisher & Davison, 2003). The resultant outcome of this tendency among the children is they grow overweight as their chances to consume the restricted fatty food items are more because of their peer exposure at canteens and other eating outlets. Economic restriction and compulsory guidance cannot yield a positive effect among child consumers. Many children assume that the lack of monetary perks and other tips bring a discouraging effect on them. However, the largest proportion of the pocket money they spend goes to the confectionaries and fast-food containing dangerous energy levels. The eating habit and the passion for such energy-rich food are common among children irrespective of their income class. A report says that an average daily consumption of nearly four hundred calories by way of candies, chips and other cheap but fatty snacks is the routine of school children among the low-income class of Philadelphia (Rabin, 2009). The gluttony among children is a normal phenomenon as they have a higher metabolism during their adolescent stage of physical development. In the course of settling the excessive urge for gaining the nutrients for the growth of tissues, their metabolism demands a lot of food. As insensible about the impacts, children are vulnerable to new tastes and the rapid popularization of certain products in the market. As adults, they are also prone to stereotypes with regards to selecting the brand names of food and beverages. However, the physical conditions and metabolic variations among the children can reflect a negative impact of some of such products that the visual media promote through ads. Some researches figure out the fact that television viewing has a double-impacting effect on children as the advertisements at one hand lure the children towards fatty and sweet eatables, while on the other hand it develops the risky habit of unhealthy snacking during their favourite programs (Harris & Bargh, 2009). Thus television and other important visual media have a categorical relationship with the gluttony-assisted obesity among children. The conceptual relationship between the promotional ads and the gluttony of the children will remain unnoticed among the parents until they realize it for themselves or know it from the experts and physicians they consult for their children’s treatment. The Sinful Consumption From the religious perspective, gluttony walks with the shame of a sin and obesity reflects the sin of gluttony. The spiritual attribute to food being holy, the context of overeating should be falling in the list of sins among the believers of many religions. The overall justification for this argument is that the gluttony of one person can simultaneously deprive another person of his essential food elsewhere. The context of the Bible categorizes people as glutton who want food rather than need it. The indicators of gluttony appears in many forms; some of them are insatiable appetite, untimely hunger, lustful anticipation for food, costly and casual consumption etc. Whatever is the kind of gluttony, the wilful intent for overdoing the process of eating and the gratuitous satiation of appetite are equally blameable for contributing to obesity and thus it can be called a sin by overeating. According to a Christian doctrine of intakes, (Deuteronomy 21:20) gluttony is a deadly sin and the sinner gets a stone-to-death penalty by the elders (Andrews, n.d.). The general teaching against the habit of gluttony is shown in many other occasions in the Bible. For an instance, according to Proverbs 23:1-3, it is greedy to eat too much, and one should not stuff oneself with food (Fischer, 2009). According to an observation, another prominent teaching about the dietary habits in the Koran (20:81) advocates the need for reasonable consumption of all good things provided by god with a warning of death penalty for overeating (Mark, 2014, p.133). Hinduism adopts a holistic approach to healthy lifestyle which recommends the practice of yoga and several forms of fasting meditations for protecting the body from overindulgence and excessive consumption. However, according to Dubois (2007, pp.271-272), the alarming trend of overeating at one meal is prevalent among the Hindus, particularly the upper-class communities, because of the frequent religious ceremonies and associated day-long fasting. The nature of fasting observed by the Hindus demand them to have huge intake at the end of the day. The frequent recurrence of these events exposes the entire family into the practice of overeating, which results in obesity. In such contexts of regional and caste-bound ceremonies, the central theme of food-control as advised by Hinduism disappears and thus it can be interpreted as a sin of gluttony. Conclusion The fast-transforming lifestyles of the economically developed urban societies are leading the public life into the menace of obesity. The concept of obesity is much more than concerning to a personalized physical disorder as it has multidimensional impacts on the victims. Gluttony and obesity are the two concepts to go hand-in-hand, and the excessive consumption has a doubtless impact on the human body unless the metabolic system can do the accurate burning of the extra calories in the body. There are a number of ways in which gluttony can be religiously perceived as a sinful human quality which renders the reward by making the sinner obese. Obesity and overweight being the most significant challenges of the developed economies, the lustful eating tendencies among the modern youth gives out a panicking image of a hapless generation. As every religion teaches that excessive love for anything material is a sin, gluttony is a sin that makes the people sickeningly fat. References Andrews R (n.d.) All About Gluttony. Available at: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/all-about-luttony-1 Birch LL, Fisher JO & Davison KK (2003) Learning to overeat: maternal use of restrictive feeding practices promotes girls’ eating in the absence of hunger. Am J Clin Nutr. 78(2): 215–220. Dubois AJA (2007) Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies. Cosimo, Inc. Fischer J (2009) Kids' Bible Dictionary. Barbour Publishing. Harris JL, Bargh JA (2009) The Relationship between Television Viewing and Unhealthy Eating: Implications for Children and Media Interventions. Health communication, 24(7):660-673. Mark A (2014) Applied Health Fitness Psychology. Human Kinetics. Puhl RM & Heuer CA (2010) Obesity Stigma: Important Considerations for Public Health. American Journal of Public Health 100 (6):1019-1028. Ruhm CJ (2010) Understanding Overeating and obesity. National Bureau of Economic Research. Working Paper 16149. Available at: http://www.nber.org/papers/w16149.pdf Rabin, RC (2009) Overeating on Pocket Change. The New York Times. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/health/13calorie.html?_r=0 Rajeev M (January 6, 2008) Overeating may pose problems. The Hindu. Available at: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/overeating-may-pose-problems/article1173642.ece Vepa SS (n.d.) Impact of globalization on the food consumption of urban India. Available at: http://www.fao.org/3/a-y5736e/y5736e02.pdf WHO (2015) Obesity and overweight. Available at: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/ Read More